- wording
- BBC News World
June 29, 2022
image source, BENOIT PEYRUCQ/AFP
A sketch of the trial shows Salah Abdeslam standing on the far right, along with 13 other defendants.
The only survivor of the group that carried out the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris in which 130 people died, was found guilty on Wednesday of terrorism and murder.
Salah Abdeslam was handed a rare sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole by the Paris Criminal Court for his role in the gun and bomb attacks at various locations in the French capital.
Of the 20 men tried for their part in the attacks, all but one received guilty verdicts.
Another of the main defendants, Mohammed Abrini, also received a life sentence with a minimum term of 22 years.
Of the nine members of the commandos that committed the attacks, Abdeslam was the only ssurvivors and Abrini was part of the group that traveled from Brussels to Paris to carry them out, although he did not participate in them.
historic judgment
What is to date the largest trial in modern French history began last September.
Victims, journalists and relatives of the deceased have flocked for more than nine months to the specially built Paris courtroom to piece together the story of the worst attack on French soil since World War II.
the surge of simultaneous attacks with guns and bombs in bars, restaurants, the national football stadium and the Bataclan music venue caused, in addition to the deaths, hundreds of injuries on November 13, 2015.
Abdeslam told the court this week that he “was not a murderer” and that to convict him of such acts would be “an injustice.”
During the trial he also stated that on the night of the attack he decided not to detonate his explosive vest for the suicide attack and discarded it in a Paris suburb.
However, the court accepted the evidence indicating that the vest was faulty and therefore did not believe that Abdeslam would change his mind at the last minute.
Those convicted have a period of ten days to appeal.
Life imprisonment is the most severe sentence that can be imposed on a criminal under French law, which only allows for a slim chance of parole following 30 years.
It is the fifth time that this sentence has been applied in the country since 1994.
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